Worship

The day when worship of idols is seen as wishful thinking is at hand. It has come perhaps too late. By waiting for imaginary friends or salvaging aliens to save us from ourselves, the human species has run through the wealth of the planet by overpopulating it and exploiting one another for profit. Now the mighty minority of the wealthy sit in their self-made corners, gated golf courses and high-rise palaces. They fantasize about space colonization and eternal life. They go abroad for plastic surgery in countries where people eat garbage off the streets.

I rejoice in, not worship, my own generous human spirit, shared by my awakened brothers and sisters, who see past the greed, corruption and laziness of personal wealth to a common good. By joining in our right actions and right thoughts, we may start a process of human healing, which in turn could heal the planet. By appealing to the peaceful and good in everyone we meet, we can perhaps overcome the violent and selfish.

Vision

Maintaining a personal practice of truth, compassion and mindfulness is aided by a vision of life as it could be without suffering, greed and violence. Formulating this vision is helped by focusing on alleviating your own suffering, monitoring your own greed and purging violence from your own thoughts and actions.

My own life is my best laboratory. By showing myself that I can effect change in my own actions and perceptions in the moment, I can instill hope into my life for the eventual liberation of all life from suffering. This requires an ongoing commitment in moment after moment.

The mind slides to its animal or habitual nature all too easily. Being fully awake entails guiding the mnd along a path to wellness against the resistance of habit and history in each moment of awareness. This takes practice. This is practice.

Nonsense

So much of what keeps us from being in the moment and being happy is simply nonsense. From childhood, we are conditioned to adopt our cultural and familial norms. Layer upon layer of nonsense from the past of our families and the past of our environment gets wrapped around our brains. And, our brains operate through the filter of those layers of nonsense, unless we liberate ourselves.

Liberation, or awakening, doesn't just happen. Facing the nonsense in your mind requires work.

The work for some entails therapy. Others find liberation through sports or yoga. Some find it through meditation and study. The path to liberation is not a dead end. There is no Eden waiting for the liberated, no cozy cul-de-sac. Liberation, or awakening, is the beginning of a new open life. Liberation itself becomes a never ending process of self-challenge and renewal.

Like growing older, liberation isn't for the weak-hearted. To be in the moment requires strength and courage. To embrace the impermanence of all things requires the acknowledgment of one's own impermanence. I believe this can become part of a daily consciousness, which promotes ongoing liberation and personal evolution. Simply put, this consciousness entails challenging everything that comes to the mind against a standard of justice, truth and compassion.